Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational Modes of Communication
Exploring Culture
While taking the course Spanish 101, listening to Spanish music, watching sports in Spanish, and reading about Spain and other Latin American countries.
Reading about Spanish and Latin American culture really helped me piece together a picture of family life and culture being about togetherness and celebration within those countries. My mom is from Spain, so I already understood that the family unit there consists of a large extended family, while here we consider our family unit our immediate family members. I think Spanish culture is so rich, vibrant, and beautiful. The rest of the world should adopt some of that fun, easy going, outlook on life we see in Spain and Latin America.
Engaging in Communities
Engaging in both your immediate and global community is a vital part of establishing both your sense of self and support system. It also keeps you knowledgable about both your community and the global community.
In Spanish culture, being deeply involved in your immediate community is super important, and I think it keeps the people lively and grounded in good morals and family values.
Interpersonal Communication
The most helpful interpersonal communication activities for me were the homework assignments that required me to complete sentences or conjugate verbs in conversation format. It helped me memorize both activity word and verbs.
Every assignment was an opportunity for me to build upon the knowledge from the previous. I consistently practiced all the new nouns I used and how to conjugate verbs properly.
Presentational Speaking
My Spanish 101 oral final consisted of me introducing myself and answering questions about where i’m from, the time, what I like to do, where I like to go. I had to maintain a conversation with my profesor in basic Spanish with proper verb-age, grammar, and etiquette.
I spoke briefly with my profesor about my name, age, the time, the activities I enjoy, and my background. I found pronunciation the most difficult part of the oral presentation. I tried to perfect my pronunciation throughout the semester, I wasn’t able to pronounce everything perfectly but I tried my best and spoke as articulately as I could.
Presentational Writing
Our writing assignments within the course required us to use the verbs we learned like ser y ir, properly conjugated within appropriate conversation. I also used the other verbs to describe actions in Spanish.
I found presentational writing extremely difficult in the beginning due to verb conjugation. Conjugating verbs became easier as the class progressed. I tried to memorize as many verbs as I could and after awhile I began to remember all the verb endings. It soon became second nature.
Interpretive Listening
Many of my homework assignments required me to listen to conversations and either provide a full response or fill in the blank. Replaying audio both helped me with pronunciation and understanding.
This semester I would say the most interesting thing I learned from the interpretive listening activities were direction terms when trying to find a location. Overall, I feel like it helped me understand conversations better by consistently listening to how people who spoke Spanish interacted conversationally on a day to day basis.